“[W]e should deliver help to Africa and not bring the problems to Europe,” he said in an interview with the Austrian media, adding that the conservative-populist coalition government in Vienna holds the same position as Budapest.

“Some people say that the solution is to bring migrants to Europe because they think it will be good for their country. The Hungarian position is that we don’t want this. There is an ideological difference,” he explained.

“This isn’t a solution for Africa, nor for Europe. In this case, our culture, which we have been cultivating in Europe for two thousand years, would be destroyed.”

The Hungarian leader also denied that his antipathy towards billionaire plutocrat George Soros is motivated by anti-Semitism — noting that “unlike in other Western European capitals, every Jewish person in Budapest is completely safe walking on the street wearing his kippah (yarmulke)” — and that their conflict was instead rooted in the financier’s desire to open the West’s borders to mass migration.

“Soros has a large network. He finances many NGOs. The European Union is also funding several Soros organiaations. These NGOs are active in political life, and that’s fine,” he said.

“However… there is a limit when it comes to national security. Migration is an issue of national security,” he added.

“We had peaceful discussions with Soros until their organisations began to finance migrants and encouraged them to cross the Hungarian border illegally. This is unacceptable in Hungary.

“We have created laws that make such behaviour a threat to our national security. In our conflict, he wants to bring migrants to Hungary and Europe, and I won’t let him do that,” he vowed.